Hey, we have a new magic year!

Nothing different happened in 1990 to make movies "HD-ready". Star Wars, Chinatown, Citizen Kane, and -- yes -- the original King Kong will look significantly better in HD.

They're confusing PQ and when multi-channel (more than stereo) sound formats started becoming the norm. But even with regular surround tracks, uncompressed sound will be LIGHT YEARS better than what you've been hearing on DVD. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I can't wait to get back to the days of laserdisc-like sound quality.

I'd say mathematically, it's indisputably greater.

Whether the difference looks greater to one's eyes will vary from individual to individual.

I think what people mean here is that the original masters of older films aren't in as good of shape as newer films (obviously) so they won't look as good due to having more grain, dirt, scratches etc.

So yes older movies will look much better in HD than in SD, but they won't look as good as newer ones in HD due to the quality/age of the master source.

Honestly, I think most people mean what they say in this sort of case -- that they don't think older movies benefit from HD. I've seen many, many people on many forums say the same thing.

Really? I just rented Birth which is a brand new movie and looked like crap. Doesn't matter.

I agree. There is a great misconception that HDTV somehow equals or surpasses the resolution of the film stock used in "old" movies.

Perhaps for a film shot on really grainy black and white 16mm stock, some case could be made that HDTV is overkill, but for everything else, even run-of-the-mill 35mm film, the resolution will be at least five times greater than that of 1080p HDTV.

Yes, but I think they mean they won't benefit as the flaws in the master will just be more noticeable in HD.

But of course some are just ignorant to film resolution as well.

Of course a new movie can get a crappy transfer.

The point is you take a movie from the 1930's that has dirt and scratches all over the only master available and do an excellent HD transfer of it its not going to look as nice as a 2005 movie that gets the same quality HD transfer as the 2005 film master wil have much fewer dirt, scratches etc. than the 1930's movie in most cases.

So again, yes old movies will look much better on HD than DVD as they'll be higher resolution. But they wont look as good as newer ones that have near flawless masters available to make the HD transfer from.

It's a moot point for me anyway as The Godfather is the oldest film I own and I don't see myself every buying anything older than it as classics just aren't my bag.

Here is where the math numbers can be deceiving. If I have a decent pair of speakers (vhs) and upgrade to lower upper end speakers (dvd) I will be amazed. From there I could go up to top end (HD) which is a larger difference in specs than the decent pair (vhs) to lower upper end (dvd). So the math shows that it is even a bigger difference in my upgrade. However, just because the math shows it to be superior, I still need to have good enough ears to perceive the difference, and I may not. Similarly, the math in PQ makes somes decent assumptions about how we watch. The difference in PQ relies on size of screen, viewing distance, etc. For many people that may make the difference pretty paultry.

Then why are so many J6P clamouring for Plasma screens from Wal-Mart? Cause they make everything look like VHS?

Form factor and prestige value more than picture quality.

Totally. These people will take them home, and have the contrast and brightness all the way up so they look like crap.

People buying a plasma at wal-mart aren't buying it for picture quality most of the time. Or at least not soley for picture quality.

It's really funny how some of the hardcore HD supporters are so convinced that everyone cares so much about HD and are going to jump right in.

It's going to be a long slow process. Most people just don't care much and are still watching basic cable on 10-20 year old tvs.

And you don't think people will want the prestige of an HD format for DVD?

Again...eventually (hopefully) all players sold will include DVD but also be Blu-Ray as well. People will have it already and start buying into it. This isn't like minidisc or laserdisc where you have to have a COMPLETELY different player to play them.

Not really. It's no where near the same as having that nifty, super thin plasma TV Joe Six Pack can hang on his wall and wow his friends with when they come over to watch football with the contrast and brightness all the way up.

It's really only attractive for those into HD for the pq and who care know how to have a TV calibrated etc. And that's still a niche.


The stickler will be how long it takes the players, and especially the discs, to sell for current DVD prices. Joe Six Pack isn't going to replace his DVD player with a more expensive one because he probably doesn't care much about PQ on his poorly calibrated wal-mart hdtv (and especially not the majority that will still be watching on 10-20 year old SDTVs). And if they get an HD player somehow, they'll keep on buying the movies on DVD is the HD discs cost more than the DVDs.

I know a guy who has had a 65" Hitachi HDTV for several years, now. He hooks up SD DirecTV and a crappy DVDp via composite to it. VHS, too. Makes me want to cry. J6P is uninformed and has no idea what HD is. These new discs will just confuse them. Video quality may be on their list, but it doesn't actually impact their lives since they have no idea what it is.

Exactly. And the guy you know probably bought the 65" HDTV for the same reason most Joe Six Packs do. They just wanted the big TV, and didn't care about the picture quality. Even more so today since all large TVs are HD.

And one day, all DVD's will be HD.

If the format(s) catch on in the mainstream.

I agree that they probably will, but it will be a LONG, slow process. Especially if the discs aren't $15 on release day like DVDs and aren't part of 2 for $20 sales a few months there after.

I actually like HD, and I'd still buy the DVD over the HD DVD if it's $5 cheaper for most non SE heavy films as I don't care enough for PQ to pay much extra.

And one day, all CDs will be SACDs.

I agree with you actually, but I think it may be pretty damn slow, and it may be on a completely different format than the two trying to win.

And one day, HD discs will be something else.

What I find very interesting is how this ties in with the thread I started about selling off DVDs in favor of the HD version. There seem to be a lot of people on the forum (which is made up of the people most likely to adapt the new format, I would think) that only plan to upgrade some of their dvds. If that is the case, I can only assume that even fewer J6Ps will do it. That can't spell great news for the format war or the speedy success of HD in general.

I'd rather buy a good scaler than swap out all my DVDs. Then I can get improvement on all formats. But some will get replaced. LOTR, no doubt. Maybe 5th Element just for comparison, I already have 2 of those.

Remastering in HD res will only help if they actually try. Many catalog titles have gotten only cursory work for DVD, doubtful they'll do much better if they come out in HD.

Yeah, I don't see the HD DVD formats having the type of catalog support we saw with DVD any time soon, if ever. Sales will be more sluggish as the players will be backwards compatible, and aside from hardcore videophiles, most people aren't going to upgrade most of their titles they own on DVD. Just select favorites at most.

I do think we'll eventually see all new releases only released in the HD format, and most of the blockbuster catalog titles, but not the more cult films and especially obscure older films.

It's worth noting that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray both have a much, much larger and stronger set of launch titles than DVD did in its first year, though.

Why? I've frequently compared my expectations for Blu-Ray/HD-DVD to Laserdisc, and Laserdisc certainly didn't have any problems attracting cult films or other obscurities.